Civilis(/z)ation Series

[Arcalane]

I'm sure there are people here who have played the Civ series - but that's not what I'm concerned about.

What I always find amusing is people's "Twisted History" or "Alternate History" tales of goings on in Civ - be it any Civ games... so here's one of my favourite moments from a Civ 4 game, where I'm playing as Tokugawa, leader of the Japanese Empire...

Oil. Everyone knows it's a valuable resource, doubly so in Civ since without it you're f***ed militarily in the Modern Age unless you want to buy it or trade it from an AI, which is not the best state of affairs. Relying on someone else is bad, yep.

So, me being the warmongering man I am, I spot the Germans have some untapped and totally unused Oil Deposits on the south pole. Not one to waste the opportunity, the Japanese economy goes into overdrive and starts mass producing the best units available, and within a few years, the German Empire is conquered thanks to a series of attacks. Not only that, but I seized the Oil Deposits. Unfortunately I was lacking in Aluminium, but it was better than not having the oil at all, that's for certain.

Bear any real-life parallels?

Anyone else got any amusing stories of crazy goings on in their Civ games? 

[Darkmoon]

I really only played the classic Civ. I did love that game though.

My favorite was me against the French. We were in a back and forth battle for the world, but I was able to slowly get the upper hand. I had them cornered to one town in South America, and was able to eat up all their resources. Then I just colonized the area the best I could, and had them so they couldn't build units or use any resources. The last 200 years was dead simple, since all I had to do was build my space ships and gain a peaceful ending.

[Arcalane]

Peaceful ending? Wuss.

[Darkmoon]

It's worth more points in the original game. Drastically more points.

[Arcalane]

It's worth more points in the original game. Drastically more points.

Interesting. I usually go peaceful, so I try to go nasty on other games.

I bide my time and build a powerful empire, maintaining a weak military in order to fool AI players into trying to boss me around. Then when it comes to war, the factories come online, and because my cities have been fully upgrading during the time, rather than needlessly building units, they are a lot faster at production.

[Darkmoon]

Yeah, I tended to keep my armies down to a minimum, prefering to target nearby enemies as need be, and cranking out resources instead. Prevented other guys from getting the Achievement buildings before I did (or whatever they're called... Wonders maybe?). and since I had the resources, I could always buy myself an army if push came to shove.

[Arcalane]

Yeah, I tended to keep my armies down to a minimum, prefering to target nearby enemies as need be, and cranking out resources instead. Prevented other guys from getting the Achievement buildings before I did (or whatever they're called... Wonders maybe?). and since I had the resources, I could always buy myself an army if push came to shove.

Wonders indeed. I love my little eco-powerhouse nations.

I often get AIs smaller than me in terms of score threatening me and demanding tribute, especially the warlike ones... fools that they are.

[Darkmoon]

I always loved that. Pathetic little upstart nations (from later in the game when they've just spawned and you're a powerhouse) coming up going "give us tribute or die!"

You and what army, eh?

I was always torn on whre I liked to play, though. The Aztecs had the bonus of being able to build a pseudo "Panama Canal" for ships, where as anyone in Europe got huge environmental and economic benefits across the 3 joint continents by getting the Hover Dam. Both were quite convenient, especially in early games.

[Arcalane]

I always loved that. Pathetic little upstart nations (from later in the game when they've just spawned and you're a powerhouse) coming up going "give us tribute or die!"

You and what army, eh?

I was always torn on whre I liked to play, though. The Aztecs had the bonus of being able to build a pseudo "Panama Canal" for ships, where as anyone in Europe got huge environmental and economic benefits across the 3 joint continents by getting the Hover Dam. Both were quite convenient, especially in early games.

Heh. I always use randomised maps, adds to the excitement, and war-encouragement, especially given Civ4's resource model, which is, as far as I'm concerned, a lot better than that of Civ2, for example. Resources didn't really mean anything then - they mean a lot more now and are quite pivotal to how one plays, which I like a lot.

[Darkmoon]

Yeah, resources don't mean that much in Civ1 either. Resources all contribute to money, and money is all that matters.

I do enjoy random maps occasionally, although sometimes they can be a bugger.

[Rowne]

I'll just jump in here and add that another thing I liked about Civilization, aside from the alternate history scenarios (which were always entertaining), was the defamation of historically important people.  They'd always behave rather interestingly and I'm not sure whether some of the attitudes of the portrayals were politically correct.

I was always fond of Bismarck who was obsessed with my nations wines and frequently begged for free wine, I gave him free wine, of course.  When a chubby, cheery man comes around begging for free alcohol, how could one refuse?

Some of the dialogues with the characters were great and this is before one starts tinkering with the game.  With the game being primary Python and as easily modifiable as it is, it's quite easy to change the AI of these characters, to swap things around andsoforth.

It gets particularly wrong (and funny) when Ghandi is ravaging his way across Rome whilst preaching peace and love, oh and I appreciate Bismarck actually returning all the wine he took, too.

Aside from cheap tinkering though, there's an absolutely fabulous ongoing modding scene which adds further amusement to the game, in the form of different scenarios, more historically inaccurate characters and so on.  Civ has always been ripe for this kind of thing, really.

The King of the Germans founds Hinduism and discovers the New World!  Hurrah!  Celebrations are held at the Hanging Gardens of Stuttgart!

[ilpalazzo]

I play Civ 3 and well I had jet fighters and icbms, as the other guys were still in the dark ages. that was a fun conqust.

[Azlan]

There is something I find comical about sneak attacking with artillery...

[Rowne]

I think they all draft Doc Emmet Brown to create hovering artillery for them, personally.  Then it's just a matter of a bunch of armed men crawling around, hushing each other frequently and trying not to draw attention to the large object with a green quilt draped over it.

Did that hillock just move?

You've had one too many ales, my friend.

Look, it did it again!

Uh-huh, is this like that time we were being invaded by gigantic pink bunnies?

But there WERE gigantic pink bunnies, with guns inside them!  I tell you it's true!

[Azlan]

Speaking of funny artillery moments I've had, I can remember rolling along with my Atlantian armored cavalry division and artillery support company in a valiant attempt to sneak attack the Enlightened Republic of the Aztecs ( ).  The area I was moving through was spotted with small unknown areas and due to a small amount of system lag, my armor became separated from the mechanized artillery, similar system lag caused me to move the artillery in the wrong direction, slightly too far and right onto a "hut".

This hut unleashed a horde of rabid barbarian phalanx (4), a legion unit (1) and a catapult (1).  Unfortunately my turn ended and the barbarians received movement.  All four phalanx attacked my arty whose meager defense was a 1, but they were veterans.  All of the phalanx, greenies and attack strength of 1, all failed miserably against my arty.  The legion and catapult were too far back to reach my arty.  On my turn, the tanks wiped out the legion and catapult. 

Not that this is especially unusual, but I just find my imagined scene of four full armies of phalanx charging down mechanized artillery with barrels dropped down and set for direct fire with their 155mm cannons... waiting to the absolute last second and laying a full barrage into the hapless warriors.

"they go boom! aaaaaaiiiieeee!  Run away! Run away!"

[Rowne]

That's wonderful, though it's not truly against mob mentality.  In fact, I find myself reminded of an episode or two of either Hercules: The Legendary Journeys or something similar, wherein a mob would be chasing something with genuine vigour, something more powerful would turn up and then they'd run and flee, completely having ignored the inevitability of some external force stepping onto the scene.  At which point they'd either cower in fear or run away.

So I can't help but think that they thought, but for a moment, that the artillery wasn't functional or was broken, long enough to issue an attack order.  Thousands of little men run down the hill.  The artillery creaks into life and thousands of little men try to clamber back up to safety.

Yup, standard mob mentality.

And very, very funny.

I love Civ and the stories of it.

[Arcalane]

Some of the dialogues with the characters were great and this is before one starts tinkering with the game.  With the game being primary Python and as easily modifiable as it is, it's quite easy to change the AI of these characters, to swap things around andsoforth.

It gets particularly wrong (and funny) when Ghandi is ravaging his way across Rome whilst preaching peace and love, oh and I appreciate Bismarck actually returning all the wine he took, too.

Why do you think I set the "Randomise Personalities" Option on every custom game?

I find some of the speeches to be rather silly though - Alexander of the Greeks in Civ4 saying "...and then we'll conquer the world together! It'll be well cool!" is a bit... I dunno... wierd.

[Darkmoon]

After all this talk, I went and found a download of the original Civ...

[Aldoun]

In a recent game for me the Jewish French went and arceboused the bronze clad Aztecs in an act of aggressive defence to protect Muslim holy city of Aimiens. Things can really be weird at times.

[Arcalane]

After all this talk, I went and found a download of the original Civ...

You can find Civ 2 Gold for download on Abandonia

[Vidar]

After all this talk, I went and found a download of the original Civ...

You can find Civ 2 Gold for download on Abandonia

Unfortunately, you can't. The game is ESA protected, and not available for download. 

[Darkmoon]

I saw Civ 3 complete at Best Buy for 20 bucks... Wasn't sure how good Civ 3 was in comparison to the rest of the series...

[Vidar]

For the more classic-minded amongst us, there's always freeciv:

http://www.freeciv.org/index.php/Freeciv

* conspirational whisper: found civ 2 *

http://asmo.jakki.org/files.html

[Arcalane]

After all this talk, I went and found a download of the original Civ...

You can find Civ 2 Gold for download on Abandonia

Unfortunately, you can't. The game is ESA protected, and not available for download. 

A new development, then. I remember it being available for download before.

[Rowne]

FreeCiv!  Zounds, it's been so long since I played that.

I'm almost tempted to gather all the bits I'd need in order to play it again.  I can't help but wonder though if FreeCiv was the open-source Civ I played that had a furry civilization as a download option somewhere or whether that was another open-source Civ variant (I know it was OS, at least).

It was a tribe of kitty-people, whom I raised up to the industrial age whilst still oddly keeping them tribal.  Yay for anarchical progression.

[KarmikCykle]

My sister is a Civ addict.  I haven't played in years, but she always plays whenever she visits.  I think the funniest thing that I ever saw was in Civ 4 when she, as the French, founded Buddhism and slavery within a few minutes of each other.